


like pandora's box

by speos



Category: DCU
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Choking, Concussions, Fluff, M/M, Mystery, the mature rating is for the choking tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 12:04:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17141420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speos/pseuds/speos
Summary: Tim didn't expect to find hope again, but he did find Jason.For sleeping4tNight on tumblr for the JayTim Secret Santa Exchange!





	like pandora's box

**Author's Note:**

> hihi! this is a secretsanta exchange for @sleeping4tnight on tumblr! I really hope you like this!! i… didn’t do a great job of adhering to your prompts haha. I meant to do the trapped-in-a-tower one, but it got a little dark and I ended up using themes from the role reversal one… but I hope you like it anyway?? I wanted it to be fluffy too so I added the lil fluff at the end! I hope its not too sappy for you though haha 
> 
> *WARNINGS*: there's a description of a concussion, and a short scene with choking/asphyxiation (no one dies tho, just passes out)

“So explain to me – _again_ – why you couldn’t get off your ass and come with me to Bhutan?” Jason kept his ears pricked and his eyes peeled as his taxi took him further and further out of the city.

Even with a military-grade satellite phone, Roy’s voice sounded grainy. “Because it was my and Kori’s anniversary, and we had plans.”

“You’re not even dating,” Jason hissed.

“So? It’s an anniversary if I _feel_ it’s an anniversary.”

“You mean if your _dick_ feels it’s an anniversary,” Jason grumbled.

Roy didn’t bother to correct him.

“One day you’re going to wake up from this weird fantasy dream you’ve constructed for yourself, and when you’re crying in the shower about how foolish and alone you are, I’m going to light your shower curtains on fire,” Jason said.

“Love you too, buddy,” Roy said cheerfully. “Oh, Kori just got out of the shower, I’m gonna go surprise her with flowers. Let us know when you get there. Bye.” He hung up, leaving Jason alone in the car to plot his revenge.

“Your friend is okay?” the cabbie asked. Jason’s Bhutanese wasn’t so good, but serviceable enough to hold a mangled half-conversation with the local cabbies.

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Jason grumbled. “Just lazy.”

“I don’t know if I would call him lazy,” the cabbie said with a smile. “It’s not everyday someone asks me to take them to the mountains. What are you doing out there, anyway?”

Jason smiled wryly. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

 

Zatanna had called him a few days earlier.

“Everyone else is busy,” she’d said, which really made a fella feel loved, but Jason couldn’t think of any reason to refuse. Everyone else _was_ busy. The big-wigs of the League had gone off-universe to fight off some unimaginable baddie who was probably trying to collapse the known world; the Titans were trying to hold off the biggest villains on _this_ world, and, perhaps most importantly, Jason was _bored_. Apparently no one needed the Outlaws’s services and Roy and Kori were off fucking somewhere.

Zatanna told him about some energy disturbances somewhere in a forest in Bhutan, near the Chinese border, that she needed checked out. She’d go herself, but – “Busy,” Jason said with a wry smile. “I know.”

Zatanna shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, Jason. I wouldn’t have asked if everyone else weren’t busy.”

 _So I’m your last choice. Got it._ Jason smirked. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it. See ya.”

Jason cut the connection before Zatanna could reply.

 

Jason’s trek took him high into the Bhutan mountains, where it was rumored there was abnormal spiritual activity.

Realistically, what Jason was _probably_ hunting for was Lady Shiva or Ra’s doing something fishy, but the magic-laced Geiger counter Zatanna had given him would tell him either way. ( _And_ it would tell him if he was dangerously close to radiation poisoning – a double bonus.)

So far, there was nothing unusual. Two weeks of hiking had only shown him the normal amount of energy in a natural environment like the Bhutanese mountains, and Jason was about to turn around and tell Zatanna that there was nothing there and that she should maybe get her antennas checked when his Geiger counter suddenly started to scream something fierce.

“Whoa, damn,” Jason muttered as he held the machine away from his face and brought one hand up to cover his ear. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

He set off in a random direction, hoping to pinpoint the location of whatever was making the Geiger counter scream like that. After wandering around the area for a few hours, however, there was still no change in beeping frequency, and the sun was about to set.

Jason leaned against a large rock while he considered his next step. “Okay, Todd, think. The thing started to screech, so it detected something. There’s definitely magic somewhere in the area. But it sounded suddenly, not gradually, which means… it’s not that I approached the right area… but that something in the area shifted to let the signal through.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Except I haven’t _seen_ anything move. So what is it that you can’t see, Jason? Magic? Or….”

Jason looked down.

“Bingo.”

Twenty-four explosives later plus a hand-grenade just for giggles, Jason had unearthed what looked like a giant underground cavern which seemed to stretch out for miles, beyond the boundaries of Jason’s flashlight.

“Eyyy, alright,” Jason grinned. “Guess Zatanna’s antennae are working after all.”

Working carefully with a system of ropes tied around a nearby tree, Jason slowly lowered himself into the underground space, a flashlight in one hand and Zatanna’s Geiger counter strapped to his belt. When his feet touched the ground, he untied the rope from his waist and leveled his flashlight into the darkness.

He barely suppressed a scream.

“Jesus Christ!” he barked, automatically dropping his flashlight to the ground and firing off a few rounds. 

He waited with shallow breaths for something to move, the crack of his gun reverberating around the cavern. When nothing did, he slowly holstered his gun and picked up his flashlight, aiming it into the darkness once again.

“Fuck me,” he breathed.

Jason was standing in what had to be the remains of a once-thriving underground city. The ground under his feet was made of well-worn stone; the buildings that littered the landscape varied in shape and size. In the distance, Jason could make out what looked like a giant marble mansion on a low sloping hill.

That in and of itself wasn’t a problem.

The _problem_ , and what had startled Jason so badly, were the people _in_ the city.

All along the walls of the stone buildings were unsteady shadows of the people who must have once populated this city.

The silhouette of children playing with a ball flickered on the wall of someone’s home; a man and a woman haggling over prices were thrown against the side of a shop. The bullet of Jason’s gun had gone clean through the head of a young man, bent over to pick something up.

No matter which way Jason swung his flashlight, he couldn’t figure out what was _causing_ the shadows. It was if they’d been pasted onto the walls while their owners had been dragged away, kicking and screaming, the only memories left of people now long gone.

Jason walked closer to the young man. He could see the bullet hole, neatly buried in the stone where the man’s temple would have been if he’d been alive.

Without thinking, he reached out a hand.

“Don’t touch that!” someone cried. A warm body crashed into Jason’s waist and the two of them went tumbling down the street.

Zatanna’s Geiger counter was knocked loose from Jason’s belt and skidded several feet away.

Reflexively, Jason grabbed the person and flipped them over, pinning them between his legs. In the same motion, he drew one of his handguns and pointed it at their forehead. “Any last words?” he asked, pulling the cocking handle back.

“Wait!” the person cried, voice softer and smoother than Jason would have expected from someone who was in the middle of trying to kill him.

Blinking, he inspected the person underneath him for the first time.

It was a young man, no older than twenty-five, with dark hair and pale skin. Slim of build, everything about the man looked delicate – the gentle curve of his eyes, the arch of his nose, the pout of his cherry lips. Jason could feel him breathing hard underneath his legs. He almost wouldn’t have believed that someone so small was capable of bowling him over, if it weren’t for his bright red eyes, pulsing with magic.

The Geiger counter was screaming in the background.

The man slowly raised a slender hand to loosely grasp the barrel of Jason’s gun. Jason didn’t move it, and the man didn’t attempt to push it away. The man whispered, “Please don’t kill me.”

“What are you?” Jason asked. “Are you the cause of the magical disturbance?”

“I….” The man licked his trembling lips and lowered his eyelids until they hid half his red irises. “I don’t know.”

“Wonderful. That’s real helpful, bub.” Jason pursed his lips, thinking. The probability that this man was the cause of the magical signature that the Geiger counter had detected was pretty damn high. It would be easiest to cuff him and call for extraction, but Jason didn’t have anything that would be able to subdue a magical being, and ‘extraction’ was just calling for another cab.

(Note to self: maybe have a plan besides ‘shoot it dead and leave’ next time.)

Still, he reflected, tilting his head at the man below him, the guy _did_ just try to save him, and he didn’t seem to be planning to harm Jason. He might as well let the guy up before continuing to question him.

Jason holstered his gun and climbed off the man’s stomach, saying, “Alright, I’ve decided not to.”

The man blinked up at him in confusion.

Jason extended his hand. “I’m going to let you up now,” he clarified.

“Ah,” the man said, and took it.

“So,” Jason said, when they were both standing and the man didn’t seem like he was going to say anything, “who are you? What are you doing down here?”

The man shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It was like I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was you. Everything else is sort of fuzzy. I don’t think I even know my name.”

Jason raised both his eyebrows. Amnesia? A little convenient, but they were dealing with magic after all. Out loud, he quipped, “Should I just give you one, then?”

The man didn’t seem to get the joke, peering up at Jason and saying, “If that’s what you want.”

“Are you suuuree?” Jason wheedled. “I could call you something truly awful, you know, like Gary.”

“Gary?”

“Yeah. Fuck Gary. That old fart tried to steal my Smith and Wesson right out of my belt. Got a bullet in the knee for his trouble.”

The man nodded slowly. “I see.”

Jason laughed. “You don’t, but that’s cute of you to say. How ‘bout I call you Tim? Y’know, like Tim Bits, ‘cause you’re so bite-sized.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Even I can tell that’s a short joke, and I suggest you take it back before I’m forced to kill you.”

Jason couldn’t tell if the man was being serious or not, but honestly, that only made him like him more. “Tim it is! Nice to meet you, Tim. I’m Jason, also known as the Red Hood in parts of the world that actually get to experience sunlight.”

Tim rolled his eyes, but smiled a small smile anyway. “Nice to meet you too, Jason. Why did you come here, if you’re so fond of sunlight? I don’t remember ever seeing it, but it doesn’t even _sound_ like something this place has.”

“We found an unusual energy signal in the area,” Jason explained. “One of my… uh, coworkers made _that_ thing,” he jerked his head toward the Geiger counter, still shrieking in the distance, “to beep when there’s an unusual magical signal. I’m just here to investigate.”

“Ah, okay. And you think that magical signal might be me?”

“Seems like the most likely explanation.”

Tim tilted his head to one side like a bird. “Okay,” he said. “Are you going to take me back with you?”

Jason’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Will you come with me willingly?”

Tim shrugged. “I don’t see why not. You didn’t shoot me, and if there’s a reason I’m down here, it’s not like I remember it.”

“Well. Alright.”

Jason led Tim back to the opening he’d blown in the cavern ceiling, and scaled the rope back up to the surface first. There was no way he was giving Tim a chance to escape.

After checking that none of his traps had been activated, he leaned back over the edge of the hole and gave Tim the all clear to climb.

This really _was_ too easy, Jason reflected as he took a seat by the opening. He was used to mobsters double-crossing him and beautiful men and women in dresses and tuxedos pointing machine guns at his face with lies on their lips, but Tim didn’t act like he had any deception in mind at all. He just willingly went along with what Jason asked from him.

Jason said as much.

“You always this paranoid?” Tim asked, slightly out of breath from exertion.

“If you knew where I came from, you wouldn’t even need to ask that question.”

“Oh?”

Jason rubbed the patch of white hair on his forehead. “Yeah. Sometimes, people don’t need a reason to hurt you.”

Tim paused. “I see,” he said quietly.

“Well, it’s not that interesting,” Jason dismissed. He let his hand drop from his hair. “You almost up yet?” he asked, changing the subject. He peered over the edge to see where Tim had climbed to now.

“Almost! I’m not the one who apparently scales ropes for fun.”

Jason could see a thin sheen of sweat covering Tim’s forehead as his huffing and puffing got worse. Jason sighed. “All right. C’mon.” He extended a hand down the hole.

Tim looked up.

Jason grimaced. “Come on. Grab it. I’ll pull you up.”

For the second time that day, Tim grasped Jason’s wrist, and Jason pulled.

“Shit!”

Instead of tumbling over the edge the way Jason expected, Tim’s head knocked against an invisible barrier and he fell back down to the ground, landing with a worrying crack.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Jason swore as he hurriedly grabbed the rope with one hand and slid down as fast as he could. Of _course_ this was too easy. Just because _Tim_ apparently didn’t any deceptions planned didn’t mean there wasn’t something _else_ that wouldn’t.

Jason knelt by Tim’s side and pulled his head into his lap, feeling for any lacerations or broken bones. “Hey, man, you still with me?” Jason asked as he patted Tim’s cheeks. “C’mon, I didn’t keep you alive just so you could kill yourself. Wake up, or I’ll have to break half your ribs doing CPR, and no one wants that.”

Whether by Jason’s extremely professional medical care or sheer, dumb luck, Tim picked that moment to groan and shift his head, eyelashes fluttering as he started to wake up again.

“Oh, hell yeah,” Jason breathed. “Hey, Tim? Can you hear me?”

“Yes, you’re so loud,” Tim croaked. “Please stop talking. My ears are ringing and my head hurts.”

“You must be concussed,” Jason said. “I’m gonna just check your head for any broken bones or bleeding, okay? We’re gonna keep talking for just a little bit, to make sure you’re okay, and then we can sleep it off.”

“Sleep it off?” Tim asked. “You’re not going to leave me here?”

It wasn’t like Jason hadn’t thought about it. Tim clearly couldn’t leave the underground cavern, and even if he could, it wasn’t like he was in any condition to do any damage for the next twelve hours. Jason could easily have backup here in half that time.

But Tim blinked up at Jason, eyes soft and hollow and so, so lonely, and Jason knew he couldn’t leave him here alone.

“No,” Jason said, stroking Tim’s hair back from his face. “I won’t leave you here.”

“Okay,” Tim said softly. “Can you whisper? My head hurts.”

“Can do,” Jason whispered as best he could. “I’ll let you in on a secret: I was best in my second-grade class at whispering. I got a prize and everything.” Jason didn’t mention that the prize in second grade for being best at whispering was not dying when his fucked up druggie mom beat his dad half to death, but, hey, sometimes some things didn’t need to be shared.

“Are you?” Tim whispered back. “I can tell, what with the way you sound like two stones grinding together.”

“Excuse you,” Jason whispered. “By the level of sass you’re giving me, you’re probably fine. Still, won’t hurt to check. I’m gonna need you to sit up, can you do that?”

“I’ll try.” Tim’s brows furrowed in concentration as he clenched his stomach muscles in an effort to sit up without any help. Jason could tell by Tim’s clenched jaw that it hurt a little, but in the end Tim was able to do it.

Jason took advantage of the angle to inspect Tim’s head. No blood, but he’d have to make sure there were no broken or fractured bones either. “I’ve got to feel your head for broken bones now, Timster. Tell me if any of this hurts in a sharp way, okay?”

“Okay,” Tim breathed. Jason winced in sympathy; they both knew this was going to hurt, one way or another.

One of Tim’s hands reached back to grab Jason’s thigh tightly. Jason froze under the unexpected touch. Probably taking that as a rejection, Tim slowly withdrew his hand, but Jason grabbed his wrist and put it back. “You’ll need it,” he whispered, by way of explanation.

Tim’s fingers curled in the fabric of Jason’s pants. “Okay.”

Jason palpated Tim’s head as gently as he could, moving on from areas that drew a wince. He found himself scratching at Tim’s scalp with one hand to calm him down. When he finished, he ran a hand soothingly down Tim’s arm. “None of that hurt with a kind of sharp pain?”

“No,” Tim whispered. “Just feels bruised.”

“Probably is, to be honest. Do your ears still ring?”

Tim shook his head no, and immediately grimaced. Jason’s heart gave a pang. Someone who so willingly trusted Jason, who seemed much less fucked up than him, didn’t deserve to be in so much pain.

“Sorry, Timmy,” Jason whispered. Feeling uncharacteristically gentle, Jason brushed a hand down Tim’s cheek, marveling at how Tim turned into his touch.

“I feel a lot better now,” Tim admitted, “but my head still hurts.”

“Good. One last test, Timmy. Can you stand up and walk a few feet?”

Tim nodded and struggled to his feet. He was about to take a step before he turned his head toward Jason and with narrowed eyes. “And then sleep?” he checked, as if Jason was going to whip out another test just to torture Tim.

Jason couldn’t stop a chuckle. “Yeah. And then sleep.”

“Good.” Tim walked a few feet away from Jason and then back with barely a wobble. “I need a nap.”

Jason took off his leather jacket and laid it on a patch of stone that looked particularly comfortable. (He was lying. Nothing about this nap was going to be comfortable.) Tim didn’t seem to mind, though, lying down with his head on Jason’s jacket and closing his eyes immediately.

“You’re going to sleep just like that?” Jason asked, surprised.

Tim cracked an eye open. “My entire body feels like I fell down a hole – oh wait, I did. Of course I want to sleep it off.”

“Something’s keeping you down here.”

Tim rolled over so he was lying on his back and staring at the cavern ceiling. “Yeah, I thought so too,” he said. “But I don’t know what it is or why.”

“Right, because you don’t remember anything.”

“Mhm.”

Jason gazed at the boy with pulsing red eyes and inexplicable memory loss. “If you don’t remember anything, how did you know I shouldn’t touch the shadows? How did you know to push me away?”

Tim turned his head so he was looking Jason straight in the eyes. He said, “I don’t know.”

 

Tim fell asleep easily, but Jason was a light sleeper, and furthermore he wasn’t about to fall asleep in enemy territory.

There were too many things that didn’t seem right. Tim said he didn’t remember anything, but he knew that a gun could kill and that Jason shouldn’t touch the shadows. His eyes were red and glowed with magic but Tim himself hadn’t displayed any powers. (The Geiger counter wouldn’t stop shrieking. Jason had to disable the damn thing so Tim could get to sleep.)

And Tim was the only thing alive down here. Everything left was shadows.

In the darkness, a hand brushed the back of Jason’s neck and whispered in his ear, _Are you alive?_

In less than a second, Jason had a gun in either hand and pointed at whatever it was had touched him.

But there was only empty space.

Jason narrowed his eyes and kept his guns cocked and his fingers on the triggers. This wouldn’t be his first battle against something he couldn’t see. “Who’s there?” he called into the darkness.

 _We are_.

The words were breathed into Jason’s ears, and he whirled around again, guns aimed once again at empty space.

“Fuck,” Jason cursed, realizing that he couldn’t shoot at what wasn’t there.

From beside Jason, Tim made a quiet, sleepy noise. “Jason?” he said, voice hoarse from sleep. “What’s going on?”

“Go back to sleep, Timbo,” Jason said tersely. “This doesn’t concern you.”

_Doesn’t it?_

Tim shot up, alert. “Jason, what was that?”

Jason snapped, “Out of the two of us, wouldn’t you know more than me?”

“I told you, I don’t – _argh_!”

Jason looked over to find Tim balled up on the ground, clutching his fists to his temples. “Tim? Tim! What’s wrong?”

“It… hurts….” Tim grit out.

“Your head? Where? How?”

“ _I’m… going… to split… apart_ …” Tim groaned, but it wasn’t his voice. It was as if his voice had been ripped straight out of his chest, modulated and transmogrified into something inhuman – demonic.

Jason had never been in a situation where that was a good thing.

He gathered what he could of Tim into his lap and stroked his sweat-slicked hair, even as the air laughed. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, I hate magic, where’s Kori when you need her?”

“ _Hurts, Jason_ ,” Tim whimpered into Jason’s thigh.

“Hey, you fucking assholes!” Jason shouted into the darkness. “Why are you doing this to him! Let him the fuck go!”

 _Him? There is no him. We_ are _him, and he is us._

Jason stared. “What the _fuck_ are you talking about.”

In answer, the shadows on the walls around them started to move. The children slithered down from the cool stone; the man and woman walked off the side of the building. The young man who Jason had shot straightened up and turned his head to look right at him. Jason could have sworn that his eyes flashed red for a moment, and then he disappeared.

The shadows on the walls swirled around them before coalescing into a single figure, neither male nor female, and only vaguely human.

_You don’t know?_

It reached out to touch Tim’s face with one long, bony finger, but before it could reach him, Jason already had a gun in his hand and shot three bullets into the figure.

It had no effect. The shadow simply misted out of existence before re-solidifying in place again.

 _We are the same_ , it cooed. _We used to be alive. We were alive, before the Destroyers came. They came, and they_ killed _us all_.

In Jason’s arms, Tim’s breathing became labored and wet, the muscles in his chest heaving with exertion. A low growl started to build in Tim’s throat.

The shadow’s fingers reached out again, but this time, they reached for Jason. Jason couldn’t move, not with Tim on his lap and still shaking and trembling like he was about to seize. The shadowy fingers brushed against Jason’s jaw.

 _When they killed us_ , the shadows whispered, _we were so helpless, so scared, so_ angry _. We died like that – we died in the darkness. Who do you think was born from our desires?_

“No,” Jason breathed, even as he glanced down to look at Tim’s shaking figure.

 _Yes_.

“No,” Jason said, more firmly. He tilted his head up so he was looking at the shadow straight in its face. “He’s not like that.”

_You, of all people, should know what we want, right?_

“He’s _not like me_!” Jason roared, whipping his gun back up to shoot at the figure again even though he knew it was useless.

 _Come back to us,_ the shadow hissed, reaching for Tim again. _Come back to what you are. Release us_.

Tim tried to hide himself in Jason’s arms. “No, no, Jason, I don’t want to,” Tim cried, with his own voice, tears running down his face. “They’re so scared, they’re so scared, I’m so scared, I don’t want to do this!”

Jason knew there was nothing he could do to stop it. His guns didn’t work, and the shadow would only deform around a physical punch. Instead, he wrapped himself around Tim, knowing his attempts were futile, whispering, “Shhhh, shhhh, Tim, I know, I know, I know you don’t want to do this, okay? I know this isn’t you. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, it doesn’t – “

When the shadows finally touched Tim, he screamed, ripping himself from Jason’s arms and scrambling away.

“Tim!” Jason called, but it was no use.

The shadows were eating Tim alive.

Jason watched helplessly as the figure forced itself down Tim’s throat amidst his pained gargles, tainting his skin midnight black like ink dripped into clear water.

When Tim’s eyes opened again, they dripped a bloody red.

Jason had two seconds to collect himself before Tim pounced.

They went tumbling, again, but this time, Jason couldn’t find a good enough footing to flip Tim over, and Tim had become too strong for Jason to grapple.

Jason’s back hit the stone ground with a painful _thud_. Before Jason could catch his breath, Tim’s fingers wrapped around his throat like constricting iron bands.

Jason immediately started to choke, scrabbling at Tim’s hands and struggling to free himself from Tim’s hold. “Please,” he wheezed. “I can’t breathe.”

Tim didn’t answer – couldn’t, through the sticky black haze that covered his mouth. He only stared unblinkingly down at Jason, eyes pulsing with a hazy red glow.

Eyes bugging out and vision starting to blur, Jason stared back.

In Tim’s red, red eyes, he saw something familiar.

Hatred.

Pain.

Anguish.

And the desire to make it all stop.

Jason knew. Jason had been there.

If Jason thought, for even one second, that it would make Tim feel better, he would have let Tim’s fingers tighten around his throat until he crushed Jason’s trachea between his hands.

But he knew that it wouldn’t. He knew that from experience.

So, with spots in his eyes and arms shaking from oxygen deprivation he reached out with both hands and brushed his fingers lightly against Tim’s face. “Don’t,” he gasped, before he blacked out entirely.

 

Jason woke up, which was something he wasn’t expecting to do.

He wasn’t above ground, though, which he had been hoping for.

Coughing through the pain in his throat, Jason sat up and tried to take stock of the situation. He was still in the underground cavern, but the shadows had gone and Tim – Tim –

Jason whipped his head around, ignoring how painful it was to even move.

He found Tim sitting a few feet away with his arms wrapped around his knees, rocking back and forth. His skin vacillated between sickly pale and black like ink, the colors ebbing and flowing as Tim trained to contain himself.

Jason reached out for him. “Tim?”

“No!” Tim cried, flinging himself out of the way of Jason’s hand. “Don’t! Don’t – don’t come near me. I’m… I’m dangerous. I’m _evil_.”

Jason approached him carefully. “You’re not – ”

“I _am_. You heard them – me. I was born from the feelings we felt before death. Before we were ripped to pieces and eaten in front of our families. That despair. That pain. That helplessness, that _rage_. That’s… that’s what I’m made of. I won’t ever be anything besides that.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Timbo.” Jason reached for Tim again, and this time, he didn’t let Tim move out of the way. Tim’s shoulder felt stiff as rock under his hand. “Tim, listen to me. When you asked me… why I came here, I didn’t tell you the whole truth. The woman who made that device isn’t my coworker – honestly, she can barely stand me. She only asked for my help because there was no one else available.

“I kill people for a living, Tim. I kill people how are bad, who hurt others, but I still kill.”

Jason’s voice softened. “I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to be made of only rage, and hurt, and pain, and want nothing more than for it to all _go away_ while at the same time clutching to those feelings with all the strength I had, because I was afraid that when those emotions burned away, I’d be nothing but ashes.”

“But then they _did_ , because emotions like pain and anger can’t sustain themselves. They had to burn out. And when they did, I discovered that there was still something left.”

Jason shook Tim’s shoulder lightly. “It was hope, Tim. For my future, for others’ futures. I could finally think about what I _wanted_ , and not have my past hurts dictate my every action.

“And you know, maybe my decisions are wrong. Maybe the path that I’ve chosen is wrong, and I’m just as bad as the scum I put down. I don’t know. But I know I don’t kill because I feel hurt, not anymore. I kill so I can help others. That’s how I know.”

Breathing through the fire in his throat, he took Tim’s face in his hands. “Tim, I promise you. You’re more than just pain and sadness. There’s always hope, buried underneath.”

“How?” Tim demanded, clutching Jason’s wrist with clawlike fingers. “How can you promise something like that? How can you _know_?”

Jason smiled. “I just told you. But if you need extra proof….” Ignoring how badly his neck hurt, Jason leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to Tim’s lips. “Maybe there’s no hope inside you _right now_. But I can promise you hope for the future. Okay?”

The light in Tim’s eyes seemed to oscillate wildly, dimming and brightening as his eyes darted all over Jason’s face. “Promise?”

Jason pressed another kiss to the corner of Tim’s mouth. “Promise. Let it go, Timmy.”

Tim did.

 

**Five months later:**

“I literally can’t believe you got job as a boxing coach.”

Tim shrugged. “What can I say? If you’re a pro, you should learn from the best.”

Jason pinched Tim’s skinny arm, whining, “But _I’m_ the best!”

Tim rolled his eyes and let Jason pull him on top of his lap. “Yes, yes, baby, you’re the best,” he said, pressing a kiss to Jason’s forehead. “You’re so good you routinely lose to me in hand-to-hand combat.”

“You’re so mean,” Jason complained. “I already told you I specialize in ranged combat!”

“Mhmm.” Tim’s lips sought out Jason’s, muffling the rest of his grievances between their lips.

Jason broke the kiss and leaned back, breathing heavily, lips swollen and shiny with spit. He eyed Tim’s flushed cheeks with a smug grin. “I guess there _was_ something nice left in you after all, like Pandora’s box.”

“Yeah.” Tim leaned forward smiled against Jason’s lips. “Like Pandora’s box.”

**Author's Note:**

> Take a sip every time I use the words ‘Geiger counter’ tbh *cries*
> 
> anyway if you got here, i really hope you enjoyed it~! drop me a line with your thoughts if you'd like! i'm @sansed-washup on tumblr if you'd like to go there as well~
> 
> @ the concussion bit, yes I looked this up, and unless the Marshfield clinic is full of shit (which, honestly, I mean it could be), you CAN sleep after a concussion, just make sure there aren’t any worrying symptoms before you do (which Jason does) (the one Jason didn’t check for are dilated pupils; there’s no harm in checking that pupils are capable of constricting in response to light!) (although, also, I don’t know if tim’s head hurting counts as a worrying symptom? I meant it more that like ‘my head hurts cos its probably bruised now’ but let me know if that’s incorrect! Ive never had a concussion myself lmfao)


End file.
